Edmond Dédé
The Historic New Orleans Collection, Gift of Mr. Al Rose
OperaCreole forwards this transcript:
Jul 19, 2018
I crashed an opera rehearsal the other day. A large group of vocalists,
young, old, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, all the genders, belted out
in long rows surrounding a piano. They were preparing for the 75th
anniversary celebration of the New Orleans Opera Association. I was
there to talk to a mother-daughter opera combo: Givonna Joseph and Aria
Mason.
“When she was little people would always say ‘Are you going to sing
like your mom?’” Givonna told me. “It would drive her crazy. ‘Im so
tired, no, I’m not gonna sing… And I said, ‘you’re going to be who
you’re supposed to be. I’m not going to tell you what you are going to
do.’ And at some point the bug bit her and by the time she got to
college, all of a sudden she says ‘I’m going to major in voice.’ What?!”
She did name her daughter Aria.
“I did,” she confirms. “I took a chance. She could have been tone deaf. That wouldn’t have worked out so well.”
Givonna’s been performing since she was a child. She was often the only black girl in her musical theater classes.
“I would try to get my friends to come with me to do that and they said ‘well, we don’t do that. Why are you doing that?”
In high school, she got into opera.
“You know, guys would be like, ‘You do what?’ So dating criteria was ‘Will you come to my concerts? If you cannot handle that, no, goodbye.’”
Her daughter Aria, also an opera singer, is just as familiar with how shocked people are when they find out what she does. But this doesn’t surprise her. She studied classical music, and says black people were largely missing from the curriculum. And when they were there, “it was mostly for their ‘exotic compositions’, or things that evoked Afro-American life or Caribbean life or what have you,” Aria says. “Nothing that really gave the full body of understanding of the way that they decided to write or the pictures that they chose to paint throughout their career as you would a Mozart, a Schubert, a Liszt, a Strauss, or someone like that.”
***
Even though creole musicians were employed by opera houses across the city, they still chose to found their own orchestra, in their own theater. There’s not much else out there about the philharmonic society other than what I just told you, but there is a lot of interest. One thing we do know, is that many of the creole composers that were named in the beginning of this story, were members. One of them was a guy named Edmond Dédé.
“Well let me first say that he was my first love!” Givonna Joseph jokes, figuratively. His “Mon Pauvre Coeur” was the first published work by a free man of color in New Orleans. It’s just a beautiful piece.
Dédé didn’t just play music. He wrote it. A lot of it. And a lot of different kinds. About six operas, five operettas, one opera comique, as well as symphonies and choral works. The thing is, to this day, none of his operas have ever been performed.
Edmond Dédé was born a free person of color in 1829. His parents, also free, came to New Orleans in 1809, after the Haitian revolution. His dad was a musician, and played with a local military band. This turned Edmond on to the clarinet, but he soon switched to the violin, and never let go. He studied with well-known Italian composer Ludovico Gabici, one of a few white musicians in the city who taught people of color. He played in pit orchestras for operas and symphonies, eventually joined the philharmonic orchestra, and started writing his own music. The thing is, no one would play it.
Sultana Isham is a violinist and composer in New Orleans, and is studying Dédé. “He had a really hard time when he was here” she says. “Because of the discrimination that he was constantly going through, specifically as a dark skinned black man.”
In the 19th Century, white composers published sheet music with their faces on the front cover. But Creole composers didn’t, for fear their music wouldn’t sell. And pictures of Dédé show he was particularly dark skinned. “But he was extremely talented,” Sultana adds, “and didn't allow that to stop him from getting what he needed to get, and do what he wanted to do.”
Dédé realized his musical career could only go so far in the South, and so he needed to get out. He moved to Mexico when he was nineteen, and worked in a cigar factory to make money. He worked, and saved for three years. When he returned to New Orleans in 1851, the Civil War was looming, and race relations felt more threatening than before. The cards were against him here.
Dédé continued playing music and working as a cigar maker in New Orleans for six more years, until he finally had enough money to leave for good. He went to France, bounced around conservatories there, and a few years later became the conductor of the Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux. Clearly things moved a lot faster for him across the pond.
She did name her daughter Aria.
“I did,” she confirms. “I took a chance. She could have been tone deaf. That wouldn’t have worked out so well.”
Givonna’s been performing since she was a child. She was often the only black girl in her musical theater classes.
“I would try to get my friends to come with me to do that and they said ‘well, we don’t do that. Why are you doing that?”
In high school, she got into opera.
“You know, guys would be like, ‘You do what?’ So dating criteria was ‘Will you come to my concerts? If you cannot handle that, no, goodbye.’”
Her daughter Aria, also an opera singer, is just as familiar with how shocked people are when they find out what she does. But this doesn’t surprise her. She studied classical music, and says black people were largely missing from the curriculum. And when they were there, “it was mostly for their ‘exotic compositions’, or things that evoked Afro-American life or Caribbean life or what have you,” Aria says. “Nothing that really gave the full body of understanding of the way that they decided to write or the pictures that they chose to paint throughout their career as you would a Mozart, a Schubert, a Liszt, a Strauss, or someone like that.”
***
Even though creole musicians were employed by opera houses across the city, they still chose to found their own orchestra, in their own theater. There’s not much else out there about the philharmonic society other than what I just told you, but there is a lot of interest. One thing we do know, is that many of the creole composers that were named in the beginning of this story, were members. One of them was a guy named Edmond Dédé.
“Well let me first say that he was my first love!” Givonna Joseph jokes, figuratively. His “Mon Pauvre Coeur” was the first published work by a free man of color in New Orleans. It’s just a beautiful piece.
Dédé didn’t just play music. He wrote it. A lot of it. And a lot of different kinds. About six operas, five operettas, one opera comique, as well as symphonies and choral works. The thing is, to this day, none of his operas have ever been performed.
Edmond Dédé was born a free person of color in 1829. His parents, also free, came to New Orleans in 1809, after the Haitian revolution. His dad was a musician, and played with a local military band. This turned Edmond on to the clarinet, but he soon switched to the violin, and never let go. He studied with well-known Italian composer Ludovico Gabici, one of a few white musicians in the city who taught people of color. He played in pit orchestras for operas and symphonies, eventually joined the philharmonic orchestra, and started writing his own music. The thing is, no one would play it.
Sultana Isham is a violinist and composer in New Orleans, and is studying Dédé. “He had a really hard time when he was here” she says. “Because of the discrimination that he was constantly going through, specifically as a dark skinned black man.”
In the 19th Century, white composers published sheet music with their faces on the front cover. But Creole composers didn’t, for fear their music wouldn’t sell. And pictures of Dédé show he was particularly dark skinned. “But he was extremely talented,” Sultana adds, “and didn't allow that to stop him from getting what he needed to get, and do what he wanted to do.”
Dédé realized his musical career could only go so far in the South, and so he needed to get out. He moved to Mexico when he was nineteen, and worked in a cigar factory to make money. He worked, and saved for three years. When he returned to New Orleans in 1851, the Civil War was looming, and race relations felt more threatening than before. The cards were against him here.
Dédé continued playing music and working as a cigar maker in New Orleans for six more years, until he finally had enough money to leave for good. He went to France, bounced around conservatories there, and a few years later became the conductor of the Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux. Clearly things moved a lot faster for him across the pond.
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